Section 5: Am I still a Babe in Christ?

Section Introduction

Many time we as human beings learn or study about different things in our life, but we never learn how to apply them to ourselves. God in his infinite wisdom recognized the fact it does not do us much good to know right from wrong, if we only know how to apply it to others. God has given us many different criteria in the Bible to use in order we might know where we stand in relationship to our Christian growth. The purpose of this section is to take a look at some of these so we can know how to examine ourselves in regard to where we stand with God and how God views us on our path towards Christian maturity.

Hebrews 5:12-14 "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews teaches us a very important truth. He tells the Hebrews first of all God expects every Christian to study and to grow in knowledge and spiritual strength to the point they can teach others about the things necessary to become a Christian, in other words, there comes a time when God expects every Christian to know enough to be able to tell those they came in contact with what to do in order to be saved. Not only did he tell the Hebrews God expected them to grow, but the time was long past for the Hebrews. God is telling us through the Hebrew letter the Hebrews had not only not done what God expected of them, but basically he was ashamed of how little they had progressed. Until a Christian can tell the difference between good and evil and it shows forth through their life, they are still babies in Christ, and being a baby means one thinks the world or in this case the Church should be centered around them.

As we proceed through this section, let us remember God wants us to examine ourselves, not everyone else because unless we honestly take a look at ourselves and come to know where we are, even if we know where we want to go, we will have no idea of how to get there.